so much for your promises
by Lady Shaye
Summary: It's another promise broken, and she might never learn, and that's what scares her most of all. / This man, whose touch used to figuratively burn her alive. / Five times that Caroline broke her promises, and one where she made an unbreakable one. Caroline-centric, D/C.
1. a web of lies

Disclaimer: Darling, if I owned VD, I wouldn't have to spend so much time writing fanfiction. I killed myself on this one, y'all. For tres MONTHS.

A/N: Lovely readers, this is complete...and...utter...crap. I mean, seriously. This is the worst I've written in a long while...and that's _saying_ something, my dears. I just legitly _could not stop..._over 11,000 words total, though this is just the first installment of, like, six. :)

And I still have to work on my zombie fic! Argh, curse you, Muse. I also have to write several things in order to maybe possibly get the interview of my freaking _dreams_. Have I written anything? NO. When is it due? IN TWO MONTHS.

...I am dead.

Of course, on the upside/bright side, I might get a review or two from you lovely people, and that always brightens my day. :)

This came from the prompt: "Caroline always breaks her promises. A five-times fic, please. Related to a song if possible." - From an old friend from school. I hope I did her justice.

P.S. All titles of all chapters come from Johnny Hates Jazz's song, "Shattered Dreams."

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Pairing: Daroline, eventually, but includes Klaroline and Forwood as well.

Rating: T, because God knows I can't go an entire fic without cussing several times. :)

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_so much for your promises_

Johnny Hates Jazz, "Shattered Dreams"

(which is ironic, because I love jazz)

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1.

_a web of lies, but it was just too late to know_

She promises Bonnie she'll control herself. It's after she kills those two deputies to save the Salvatore brothers. And she keeps her promise, for a time. But it's the first of many that she'll break. After all, she's young and impulsive and before she knows it something (she doesn't even know what, maybe it was the way that her mother looked at her this morning, like she _knew_ even though Caroline had compelled her into forgetting) sets her off, makes her pissed and yearning and _hungry_. And she knows exactly what she wants, and the small part of her brain that is still rational and clearheaded—the one no longer in control, outdone by the thirsty, desperate, rage-filled monstrosity inside of her—begs her not to go for it, but she can't stop it. Her body is like a robot that she can't stop from performing its sacred duty, its God-given task, its programmed job.

It's like there's this red haze, a blur in everything, and she doesn't even know what's going on when suddenly it's like the bloody smoke clears and she sees that she's in a car, her own car, and she's dressed (leaving little to the imagination) like a risqué supermodel or something and her hair is perfectly curled into frozen-by-time-and-maybe-hairspray blond ringlets and her makeup is flawlessly styled after ancient Egyptians or something—long, dark, streaking carefully-designed black lines of eyeliner, and thick blue smudges of eye-shadow over her lids, accentuating her eyes. Her lipstick is a hot red when she checks her side mirror, and you could probably see it from fifty feet away. Fire-engine red, and when she licks her lips she can't make it fade away, and then her fangs come out and her gums hurt and she gasps and it's like the first time because the hurt hasn't gone away just yet.

The car's off. She doesn't remember driving, or parking, or turning the car off, but somehow she did and she's outside of a club and it's nighttime. She's alone in the dark parking lot, but she enters the club. Like she's in a freaking trance or something.

She finds a piece of eye candy. He outlines the requirements, the things she's always liked: dark hair, mysterious eyes, smooth skin, smoother words, and a heartbeat (that pattern was broken by Damon Salvatore, but who gives a fuck anymore—she certainly doesn't, and no one else gave a fuck about her to start with, so). He has a pretty smile, bright shiny teeth against dark skin and full lips. He looks Spanish and he has the accent, and his words are soft but sharp and they cut through her to the bone (the part of her that can still understand her, and what she's about to do to this pretty, soft-spoken boy).

_I'd like to take you out tomorrow._

_ My name's Jesse. Jesse James Rodriguez. Oh, and, no, you don't get to give me crap about the name, my friends already do it enough._ (There, he gestures to a bunch of boys at the bar who are grinning at him—_you go, bro, she's hot_, she hears whispered by one of them, and she smirks at that one—and winking at her and downing shots of vodka and tequila like they're vitamins to health freaks.)

_What's your name? …I really like that. I mean, Caroline. I always thought that was a great name._

(It hits her that he'll never get to take her out tomorrow, and that his friends will never tease him about his name or his pick-ups—actually, she's picking him up now that she thinks about it—again, and that he'll never compliment her name again. And she can't stop it. She's just not that strong. She can't fight herself and her urges, and win. She just can't. She's too weak for this, to take down her new primal desires and succeed. No chance.)

She replies to his questions and answers with witty comments to things that he says, almost as though it's a routine. And though there's emotion and excitement in her voice, in all seriousness it feels like she's speaking in monotone, though the sane part of her mind is begging her to stop, to drive away, to not drink this poor guy dry eventually, alone and late in the night when he's too drunk to even stand half of one percent of a chance against her.

She orders an Arnold Palmer: half lemonade, half iced tea, "just a splash of vodka," she instructs the bartender, who looks bored and only interested in her breasts, which look spectacular in her size extra small red tank top. And her ass, in those too-tight jeans from two years ago. But they still fit, and she looks amazing in her black leather jacket, so. Whatever. Let the asshole stare.

She doesn't want to get drunk tonight—or, rather, the beast inside of her doesn't. The part of her that can feel what she's about to do, that small maybe-still-human part is screaming at her to get wasted so she might somehow _forget all of this_ in the morning, in the aftermath of this.

That won't happen, though. Because she knows instinctively that she will never forget. The vampire inside of her will force her to remember, no matter how much alcohol she consumes tonight.

And it goes all exactly as the monster in her plans. He buys her drinks and chats her up and thinks that _he's _the one with all the strategy. The creature smirking within her seductively suggests that they move it to his apartment (which he shares with his roommates, but she hears when he goes over to them and tells them not to come home tonight or they _will regret it, because she's freaking hot, guys, seriously, leave us alone or I'll slit your throats_ _in the morning_).

He follows her out of the bar when she drinks the last of her third tequila shot. She'd only had one Arnold Palmer before the thing in her decided it wanted a little something stronger. Sometimes alcohol, she thinks, might make the edge sharper, more defined, more exciting. (God knows Damon, back when she was human, was happier when he was drunk and drinking her blood. But then, he was practically tipsy all of the time. That's what happens when your main intake is blood and alcohol, she supposes. Both can lead to frenzies, and he frenzied on her often enough.)

They are in an alley as he leads her to his home. It's the most cliché of things, but the thirsty predator that didn't used to be there until a pillow went over her face chooses it, says it's good enough, and next thing she knows she's got him pinned up against the side of some building covered in badly-spelled graffiti. He's laughing into her kiss, thinking she just can't hold herself back any longer from him—and he's right, _she can't_ (rather, a dark part of her can't) anymore.

Then her fangs are protruding and sinking deeply in his neck, piercing him, and she has a hand clapped over her mouth to cover his screams. Once Stefan taught her how to bite without hurting the person quite as much—_just in case_, he said at the time, _just in _case_, let's hope you don't _need_ to know how to do this_—but she can't control herself and she knows it pains him to have her teeth in him like this.

When she's done and his screams die down into gasping breaths and maybe a few desperate pleadings, she sucks the last little bit and he's dry, he's gone, he's _dead_. Like her grandmother, like her old cat, like Elena's parents, like her parents' marriage, like a part of her (physically _and_ emotionally _and_ mentally, before you ask). He's dead.

She can't think of what to do. If she tells Elena, she'll certainly let it slip to Bonnie. That will be days of either aneurysms or ignorance, and definitely a lingering grudge either way. If she tells Stefan, he will say something to Elena; same end result, just add in a disappointed Stefan, which is one of the worst, most annoying, more rare, most terrifying things in the world (she's really seen so very little terrifying things, when you think about it, if that's on her top ten list). And there's really no one else to tell, except…

She doesn't want to think about it too much, but it is the logical choice. It makes—well, not perfect sense, but enough that she decides it will work out for the best. Because he can keep his goddamn mouth shut.

So, in the end, she calls Damon.

He answers and he sounds drunk and horny and angry and maybe a little needy (so, same as always, but she doesn't remark that because she needs his help) but he agrees to come out to where she is. She doesn't know where, exactly, but she knows where the club was and she just tells him, take a left from it, go one block and you'll find an alleyway. He hangs up and he's there much faster on foot than she was driving. (Apparently, even the monster inside of her is still getting used to the running a mile a minute thing, which is why she drove. That's her best guess.)

Without a word, he's there silently and he slings the body over his back. "Where do you want him?"

Then it seems like Damon has all the answers and maybe it's best just to let him do his thing. He's done this a thousand times before, right? (He would have done it to her, too, if he'd had the chance back after she turned. If Stefan had let him have the opportunity, if Elena hadn't stepped in front of her. That should be scary but it isn't now because most of her still can't feel anything but fear and disgust—for herself, for her craving for blood, for the fact that some of her still wants to lick the body clean.)

"Somewhere that no one will ever find him."

But they'll know he's dead. There will be no false hope for his friends and family. She knows this. Even without staring at the ground, she knows there's enough blood on the ground that no human could survive it. (She's still very messy with fresh feeding, and she can't tell if that's meant to be horrifying or comforting that actually very little of his life-force went into her.)

He takes her to a little branch of woods, just a few minutes away when they run. "Some company owns this place. They send people to check it out every year or so, per policy, but they never go farther down than six feet. I've checked. Luckily, with vamp strength, you can dig eight or so feet in about ten minutes, more or less, depending on energy rate." He tosses her the body. "Hold that thing, I'll dig it. I'm faster, and not to mention: I'm stronger than you, little girl. Don't forget that."

She doesn't like it, but she holds the corpse. He still has the same pretty lips, even in death, even spotted with black death-throes blood. But then, so does Damon, even when he's smirking.

She closes her eyes and counts down from five hundred. When she gets to negative fifty-seven or so, he taps her on the shoulder and she hands him the body carefully. Then she closes her eyes, but she's lost count somewhere along the way and so she just stands there, listening to Damon bury a pretty innocent boy that the beast inside of her murdered.

When Damon rouses her this time, he does it by stroking his thumb across her cheek, and she realizes that her face isn't dry anymore. Maybe it never was. Maybe she's been crying ever since she called Damon, but she doesn't know anything anymore and she doesn't know what part should scare her the most.

He licks his thumb and shows her all five bloody fingers on his hand. Wow, her face must be truly covered in blood. "You really need to control your biting technique," he states, as though he's done this before so much that it hardly bothers him anymore (maybe that's true, though she suspects it's not; his I-have-no-humanity mask is not half as good as he thinks it is, and that she could tell even while she was being compelled). "Seriously. You bloodied him up _good_."

"Those guys," she says suddenly, feeling panicked. "They saw me with him. What if they—what if they report me?"

He rolls his eyes and waves a hand at her dismissively. "Seriously? Those guys are probably halfway to getting wasted if they weren't when you left. Besides, there are no security cameras there, I checked on my way in to find you. Your instincts probably told you to take him to some dark corner to talk to him?"

She nods. _Yes_. And she had resisted. But it hadn't been enough.

"That's just basic vampire self-preservation instincts, VB. Keeps the coppers from coming after us as much. I promise, in the morning all those guys in the bar will remember was that you were blonde and hot with Egyptian eye makeup. Right now…well, you're only one of those things." He touches her face and pulls away his fingers streaked with black eyeliner, smudged by her tears and probably running down her face like a crying idiot. She curses her lack of waterproof eyeliner.

"Only one?" she can't help but ask. Whenever she's around Damon, it's like she can't help it. His smartass qualities just…have rubbed off or something.

He smirks, with just a touch of not-quite-hidden concern. He probably doesn't know, probably thinks it's hidden very well, but then, that's just Damon. "Yeah, well. To me, crying girls just aren't hot. Sorry. You'll probably get a different opinion from Mutt or whatever. Ask him."

Oh. She hadn't told him about…

"Matt and I broke up."

He smirks at her, amused. "Officially?"

"For real. Yesterday."

Huh. In retrospect, maybe _that's_ what set her off? Oh, who knows, and who cares anymore.

"Well. Then don't ask him." He shrugs. "If I were you, I'd just ignore him."

"You didn't ignore me," she says when he turns away, and he turns back around, his single eyebrow raised dramatically in a question of curiosity. "When I turned. And we had broken up, or whatever. Trying to kill me's about the same thing as breaking up, I think."

He smiles, but it has very little humor in it. "If I recall correctly, _you_ were the one that approached _me_ at the carnival. Tossed me down a hallway, too, or something like that. I was just trying to protect the town from further deaths."

"_Right_, because that's always been your goal, your innocent motive," she says as sarcastically as she can manage, and her voice breaks and she remembers that she's standing two feet away from the grave of a twenty-two year old with some real promise and pretty lips and even prettier words. "Besides, if _I_ recall correctly, you were the one that gave me blood in the first place." She crosses her arms, convinced. "You didn't give up on me." She doesn't know why she's pressing this—she doesn't want to give up on Matt, not completely, though part of her is wondering if it's worth the trouble. But that's not it. That's not why she's pushing this. And she can't figure it out.

"_Elena_ didn't give up on you. Neither did Judgy." He crosses his arms back at her defiantly. "I just listened to them. Got bossed around by two human girls. Not the highlight of my life, let me tell you, stuck in a hospital full of blood and being told to do '_the right thing_' and save _the most_ annoying girl in the world." His voice turns mocking, imitating Elena as badly as possible, she thinks, probably perhaps on purpose.

"Bonnie told me that you suggested it," she shoots back.

He raises a delicate eyebrow. "Maybe Judgy isn't always in all honesty, ever consider that?"

She shakes her. "Bonnie wouldn't lie to me."

_But you're about to lie to her_. The words are unspoken on his lips, but they both hear them. Because Caroline's going to lie to one of her very best friends about breaking her promise. ("_I won't kill anyone else, Bonnie, I swear that I won't. I promise, okay?_")

They leave the woods and run to her car where she left it, and they drive home almost silently. He fiddles with the radio and threatens her when she almost leaves it on a bubblegum pop station and gives her a light pat on the shoulder when she drops him off. "Don't feel too guilty, okay, VB?" he asks her, and there's a hint of almost-gentleness in her voice. "It's nothing that you can control. I remember the first few months. The thirst. The torture. The way the slightest thing can piss you off so much that all you see is red and next thing you know you're drinking someone dry. I remember not wanting to, but the beast kept controlling me. I get. Don't let anyone else make you feel too bad for something that you can't _control_."

His eyes show a hint of empathy, and she soaks it in like a sponge. She _needs_ understanding right now, and apparently only Damon can provide it because Stefan is such a lovely saint and nobody else in this damn town is a vampire that she can sort-of trust.

(Did she just admit that she maybe kind-of _trusts_ Damon Salvatore? Oh, fuck, the world's officially doomed. Hell has frozen over, alert the presses.)

When he turns to go, she calls out to him, "Thanks."

He looks over his shoulder. "Promises aren't usually made to be broken, VB. Learn the lesson that I didn't."

She drives home and twists the ring on her finger that Bonnie gave her as she sits in her bed.

About a month or so later she hears about a memorial service for Jesse Rodriguez—she keeps tabs through newspapers and her computer—and she attends, wearing a long-brimmed hat and a black dress with a high neckline and long sleeves. (Her mother thinks she's at a party, her friends think she's visiting her dad.) Even though it's summer and she can feel every inch of it burning into her skin more and more by the sun, her self-awareness heightened by her transformation into a vampire. It's a small sort of torture to cope with the pain that she surely inflicted on that poor boy.

She shakes his mother's hand and introduces herself as one of his ex-girlfriends (which feels righter than saying she picked him up at a bar and sucked him dry, drank him in and left him buried deeply within the earth), feeling dirtier and guiltier and even more wrong all the time, and she leaves early and steals into the Salvatore home. No one's there and nobody is answering their damn phone so she just confiscates (plunders) a glass of Damon's bourbon.

_Promises aren't usually made to be broken_.

Not at the time.

Oh, but all the things that she's promised.

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A/N: So, the first chapter ended all angsty! But not to worry, there is more to come! I promise. :)

Because I'm evil like that and I start new things all the time. But this one I've actually sort of maybe finished! (Not totally satisfied with the outcome, but oh well.) But you have to read to find out!

Whoa, shameless self-advertising right there! Anyway. Review?

Also: see if you can find the quote from "Disturbing Behavior," which I totally added in last-minute just for fun! It's probably totally obvious, but I had fun putting it in. :)


	2. thought it was you

A/N: Hey, guys! Yup, posting all the chapters in one night. :) I've found that if I leave stuff alone, saying that I'll post it later...I pretty much just never do. Which is depressing. But, yeah.

This one hints at Forwood, btw. Well, more like flat-out states it and then proceeds to give you an entire chapter on it. Much shorter, but it was meant to be that way. And very complicated.

Disclaimer: Do not own. Am crying on the inside now. Hope you're happy.

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2.

_thought it was you who would stand by my side_

She promises Tyler it'll be only him. And she expects it, too. She thinks that he will truly be the only one, always. But he's Klaus's plaything, a small toy for the Original hybrid to play with, and in the end, it's too much. It all plays out and she can't handle it anymore, and not ever again.

So she breaks both of their hearts.

Two weeks earlier—before their breakup, which was probably inevitable when she thinks back on it all—he gave her a ring. It was small and just a simple tiny golden band. Just for her to wear on her forefinger, or maybe her middle finger. Even her thumb. ("_It doesn't matter, so long as you'll wear it. It's a promise ring, Care. Promise. Meant to be. Match made in heaven and all that. So, please, just say yes. Just to the promise, for right now._")

He begs her not to go and she cannot listen, and two weeks later, when he tries to kill her again not by his own doing, she breaks up with him and moves into the boardinghouse, because she knows the Salvatore brothers might keep him from her better than just she could do all by herself (and they'll keep her from him, because God knows she'll ponder the hours and sometimes be unable to stop herself from wanting, trying, to go back to him).

And she sends him his ring in the mail a week after the breakup, when she realizes it's been on this whole time, feeling like it _belonged _there on her ring finger, where she'd placed it despite Tyler's insistence that it "_wasn't meant for that finger, it's just a promise, not an actual real engagement ring, Care_. _You don't have to take it so seriously if you don't want to, really. I won't be offended._" (But the hope in his eyes when she put it on her ring finger made her feel so much _happier _at the time, and now she just feels empty and her heart-chest-area is aching even though it's no longer beating, just breaking.)

He doesn't send anything back, he barely even admits to recognizing her anymore. Slowly, they became just what they were before: two people who'd known each other their whole lives but never really interacted on a daily (or weekly, or monthly) basis. There was the rare occasion that they'd bump into each other at the store or in the movies. An awkward hello and a scrambling to get the right pasta box or find the correct seats with the right person at the theater. Then maybe a small goodbye or acknowledgement of a sort and nothing more. Until next time. If there ever is one again.

Meanwhile, she stays at the Salvatore boardinghouse. She's alone a lot of the time, but it's not their fault, really. Stefan and Elena are caught up in their relationship, stuck repeating the same motions: defending her from Damon's advances, stopping everybody in the whole freaking supernatural _world _from killing her, and making sure their bond stays strong through it all—maybe despite it all. They shouldn't have to stop their lives to comfort her because her _boyfriend_ (ex, she reminds herself) broke up with her and she's got nobody to talk to. Whatever. They have their own lives.

Anyway, she's alone a lot. She steals some of Damon's bourbon when she gets terribly lonely, and he doesn't catch her, which surprises her. Maybe he knows already, maybe he doesn't care, because God knows she doesn't anymore and maybe it's a vampire thing and not just a heartbroken thing.

Another promise broken, and she doesn't mind it when Damon sits next to her on the couch one night and hands her a glass of bourbon of his own volition. And she doesn't mind it when she falls asleep during their conversation and wakes up in the morning in her own bed, where he must have carried her. And she doesn't even mind when he teases her into oblivion over the next week for it.

Because it's another promise broken, and she might never learn, and that's what scares her most of all—that she might be responsible for a future eternity's worth of broken promises.


	3. said you'd die for me

A/N: Yeah. So. I'm angsty like this. :) Hints at Klaroline, btw. And Caroline gets really super angsty.

And I make Stefan kind of mean. Which makes me mad at myself, because even though Stefan's not my favorite, I love him and his own little strange bunny-eating ways. It's a different kind of love, but I don't like making him _mean_.

Disclaimer: Don't own. Getting really tired of saying that. It makes me sad inside.

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3.

_said you'd die for me_

She promises Stefan she'll protect Elena, and it's a lie, it's such a horrible lie. Oh, she does her best on this one. And there's no way to _not_ break it. But that's still no excuse, is it, because her promise is broken. Because Klaus is holding Elena by the neck in one hand and her by the wrist in the other. But he stops her from reaching out towards Elena with a hiss and a reminder. "You leave her alone, or she dies. Let's wait for the Salvatore brothers, all right, Caroline, love?"

And she hates that he calls her _love_, hates that he flashes her that smirk and her legs still wobble anyway, hates that she _doesn't_ hate _him_. Not completely.

Damon and Stefan get there quick, because God knows they'll do anything for Elena and _so would she if she could reach her but she can't, God help her_. Elena gives them a weak grin and tries to make one last, impossible deal with the angry Original. Damon looks helpless, a look Caroline's not used to from him, and Stefan looks scared but she can tell that he's trying his best to hide it.

"You disobeyed me," Klaus says, and he sounds oddly pleased for a man so angry. Like he's enjoying this. Bastard probably is.

"I'm sorry," Caroline breathes for Elena, because this is her job, this is everyone's job—protect Elena, take the blame, take the fall, die for her. "I'm sorry, Klaus, I'm sorry. Punish me instead, please, hurt me."

His look almost softens, but it's only his eyes that show a hint of humanity to them, and it quickly disappears. "Sorry, love."

He sticks a stake in her stomach and lets her drop to the ground, not even moaning in agony because her eyes are glued to the scene before her (hands gripping the wound and placing pressure as she cradles the stake to keep it from digging in further, but she's too scared to rip it out, what if she does it wrong?), with him turning to Elena dramatically.

"Now," he says, "love. Just you and me, sweetheart."

Stefan tackles him and Damon takes Caroline into his arms, being careful with her bleeding stomach, and takes Elena by the hand—Elena, who is scared senseless but not physically hurt—and Caroline is babbling her sorries and her I-promised-I-promised's, and Damon tells her to _shut the hell up, it's okay, let's get out of here while Stefan takes care of this_, but he almost says it gently and that's a first for them, and she's too surprised to continue rambling incoherently, so she does as he says as he gingerly carries her, holds her in his arms like something out of a goddamn Harlequin romance novelette, for Christ's sakes, and runs them back to the house, making sure that Elena does something faintly resembling keeping up.

They're sitting in the living room as Damon dislodges the stake from her stomach, and she hisses. Elena turns the television on, and picks a recorded documentary about vampires. Damon, no doubt, recorded it. "It _burns_," she hisses as Damon tugs at the wood inside of her.

"Gee, really?" he asks sarcastically. "I've had a couple of them before myself, VB. Quit bitching, sit still, and let me do this as fast as I can."

She crosses her arms over her chest, tells him to leave it in, let it alone. "It doesn't hurt that much."

"It will soon," he warns, but she doesn't give in. He softens a bit, uses that look that makes everyone always feel sorry for him but her, because she's always been immune to him when he _tries_ to look pathetic (but she always know when he really deserves her sympathy, even when no one else does). "Please," he says, as nicely as Damon Salvatore can possibly be (which really isn't very nice, actually, but he tries and the effort is enough to make her want to soften). She thinks to herself that she _won't_ give in.

She uncrosses her arms anyway, because he smiles at her with that Salvatore charm that even she isn't fully immune to (and the scars on her back and neck and breasts are enough to prove it, thank you very much).

It hurts like a complete and utter _bitch_.

"Damn it!" she exclaims after he snatches the stake out. "What the hell? Were you trying to take half of my stomach organs with you, too?"

Damon only smirks, and she _is_ impervious to _that_ look. "What can I say? It's fun, torturing you."

"I remember," she mutters, and his smile drops and so does hers, and nobody says anything, they just sit—all three of them—on the couch, watching the vampire documentary about Elizabeth of Bathory and Dracula, with Damon holding a blood-streaked stake in one hand and Caroline holding a glass of AB positive herself.

Stefan stalks in after midnight, and the glare that he throws at Damon and Caroline cannot even begin to compete with the one that Damon throws right back. "What's got your panties in a twist, Stephanie?" Damon asks.

"You—left me—_alone_—with Klaus," Stefan says through gritted teeth. "He could have compelled me. I'm allowed in this house, you know. If he wanted _anybody_ in here dead, all he had to do was catch me for three seconds during our fight, and I'd be gone. I'd be here, killing somebody."

"But he didn't, and you aren't," Damon counters. "Next time, let _me_ tackle Klaus, and _you_ can take the girlies home. Pulling a stake out of a bitter bitchy blonde wasn't my idea of a fun night, let me tell you, and the _one_ time I record something for fun Elena plays it on the most somber night we've had in—well, a week, actually. We never get a goddamn break, do we? Now that I think about it." He's musing now, but he snaps back to attention at Stefan's impatient look. "Anyway. Next time, switch places with me. I'm the one still drinking the vervain, after all, and yes, it still tastes like a bitch. Thanks for asking."

Stefan doesn't look amused, though Elena's biting back a smile and Caroline's rolling her eyes fondly. "I could have been dead," he says. "How would you have known?"

Damon looks shocked at that thought. "Klaus wouldn't kill you," he finally says. "He has a soft spot for you."

"He has a soft spot for Caroline, too, and he didn't hesitate in putting a stake in her stomach today." He turns to Caroline. "That reminds me. How on earth did you two even get into that situation? That's stupid. You're a vampire, Caroline, for God's sake. You should be protecting Elena."

"I don't need protection," Elena says, all human and damageable and frail and butterfly-like, with wings too wet to fly and too delicate to touch. (Caroline could rip her apart with just one touch, one stroke of her long firm purple-painted nails, but maybe that's what separates her from Klaus, is that she won't. She thinks that that's the difference, after all. Maybe.)

"Oh yes you do," Damon snorts, and Elena shoots him a glare. He rolls his eyes and shrugs. "Whatever."

"He vervained me," Caroline argues with Stefan. "I tried to help her, Stefan. Cut me a little break. I don't _mean_ to get captured, you know."

"Yet somehow you do," Stefan says. "All the fucking time, Caroline."

She knows he's had a bad night, she knows he could have died, and she knows that he's been worried a lot lately, but hell, she's had a bad time of it too. She got vervained, kidnapped, and staked by a cruel son of a bitch—and she got rescued and had her stake removed by a _different_ cruel son of a bitch. She's been _trying_, isn't that good enough? And she freaking breaks like an utter little twig, all of her teenage angst and vampire stress mixing in together, and that control freak on crack lets the vulnerability shine through for just one moment, and she hurts inside (not just where the stake was, but where her best vampire friend just turned on her; poke her in the chest, oh yeah, that's where the pain is).

"I'm sorry," she snaps sharply. "I'm sorry I try my best for you and it isn't good enough. Oh well, I'm used to that. I'm sorry I annoy Damon to hell. I'm sorry Elena can't protect herself. I'm sorry you wrung a promise out of me several months ago when I was too confused and too naïve and too uninformed to realize what kind of promise I was making—because Stefan, I didn't know that when I got into this, I'd have to outsmart a million year old Original who's got the hots for me. I didn't know I'd have the protect the one girl that attracts every mean little bloodthirsty creature in a million mile radius. I didn't know I'd have to play these clever little games that you and Damon and Katherine are used to. I didn't know I'd have to deal with cravings and horniness and every other stupid fucking vampire problem that comes along with it on top of it all. And I'm sorry everything has been going to hell in a hand basket and that you're struggling with your blood problems and Elena can't choose, and I'm sorry that I'm still freaking _here_." She's breathless, suddenly, having run herself out of things to apologize for, things that she didn't know she'd have to deal with in the long run.

Stefan looks slightly surprised that she could be this vehement, and shocked that she'd say all these things to him—to all of them. Elena has her lips pursed, her face set in her normal "I'm in deep thought but I still can't decide between two boys, like a freaking third grader at the playground picking between two perfect looking swings with deep harm once done to them" look. And Damon is smirking. Maybe he's proud of her outburst, she doesn't know.

She bites her lip. She's really sorry now. She shouldn't have said those things. She should have kept her promise. And now Stefan's going to be really mad at her and these are really the only three people she has left in her life. (Except maybe Liz, but what can she trust Liz with when it truly counts? She doesn't know anymore.)

"I'm sorry," she says, apologizing for real this time instead of sarcastically (except maybe those apologies were halfway real too? Because it would be just like her to apologize for these kinds of things). She turns her face away and lets her hair hide her like a blonde shimmering curtain or wall, saying brokenly, confusedly like a clock that's just gotten out of synch with the other clocks, not knowing what she's doing or how to fix it, "I'm sorry. I—I should go. I'm sorry."

She slips out with vampire speed before anyone has a chance to say anything else. But she doesn't go home, because that's where they'll expect her to go, and Damon's probably already waiting there for her (he's so much faster than her it's almost scary). Instead, she goes to the Lockwood property, to the cell where she once locked Tyler up and afterwards started her relationship with him. (Just another promise, gone and ripped to shreds, and she curses herself in her head, and maybe out loud, too, for reminding herself of it.)

She's curled up in the corner where she watched Tyler change before her very eyes so many months ago (feels like decades now), thinking that she hasn't talked to Tyler in months lately. Her arms are around her legs and her chin is balanced on her knees, and she just wants to go to sleep. She hasn't slept in what feels like forever, and the few moments where she was in unconsciousness thanks to Klaus's vervain were a very uneasy sleep, a dream of a British accent and teeth that totally don't _look_ English and a slow, knowing smirk-smile, and clear eyes that scare her to her bones, frighten her down to her very core simply because of how much she _wants_ him sometimes.

"I don't know if I can do this anymore," she breathes, whispering to herself. "I don't know if I can protect Elena anymore. Not like this. Not like this."

She curls up on the dank floor of this dark dungeon and prays to a God that she hasn't believed in for a long time, praying that the three most important people in her life will still want her if she has to break this promise in the future too, again, just like she broke it halfway today thanks to vervain and Klaus's tight grip and stake. She buries her face in her knees and tries not to cry because she's so goddamned _exhausted_ of crying, and maybe there isn't that much left in her anyway to let her cry again. And nobody finds her. She likes it that way. No one to witness her pain, her weakness. She's so tired of being weak in front of other people.

"I don't know anymore," she murmurs to herself, but for now she'll keep her promise as best she can. Hopefully, maybe that will be enough. For once.


	4. woke up to reality

A/N: Um. Angsty. And Klaroline. Enough said. (But I promise we'll get to the Daroline eventually.)

Disclaimer: No. No. No. NO. If I still get sued after saying "no" that many times, I will not be a happy lady.

* * *

4.

_woke up to reality_

She promises Klaus she's too smart for him. That he cannot seduce her, cannot ravish her, cannot convince her to give up what's left of her humanity. That she will not let him love her, and that she will not love him either.

When she wakes up in the morning next to him, wearing nothing except the sheets wrapped tightly around her body, she almost doesn't recognize the situation. It's been a long time since she's woken up next to someone—she hasn't dated in a long time, because nearly all vampires are either untouchable, evil, or undesirable, and all humans have a risk of becoming her next living, breathing, bleeding Happy Meal. So she just stays away from anything screaming, whispering, or even hinting at the thought of attraction.

So when she wakes up with his arms curled around her, his legs spooning hers (and _God_ does she hate being the little spoon, it reminds her of Damon and his little always-protecting-Katherine fantasies in her cloud of compulsion-scattered memories), his face nestled in her shoulder and hair—she (quite understandably so) freaks. The. Fuck. Out.

Just in her head, of course. Silently, she steps out of bed—much quieter than that first morning with Damon, back when she was human and helpless—and dresses, making sure not to wake him, and slips out the door of his bedroom and his home. She runs home as fast as possible, her legs pumping hard and arms swinging, her breath almost but not yet harsh. She isn't gasping yet, because she isn't human enough to need to breathe.

God_damn_ her weak will, and her inability to fight alcohol and cravings for an English accent and non-British white shiny teeth with even whiter, even shinier little fangs to them. (And a mix of red and golden eyes, because Caroline has always wanted the things that she isn't supposed to have, damn her.)

She gets home and curls up on her bed, sheets still made and bed not slept in, and tries to understand why the fuck she's so _stupid_. Why Elena doesn't trust her with all of their plans. Why Damon still calls her VB and treats her like she's (still, and always was, in his eyes) a dumbass clueless human. Why Bonnie looks at her like she can't comprehend the littlest thing, and explains it to her in little words like she's a five year old again (like she never grew up, like she's stupid or something). Why Stefan sets such high expectations for a new vampire and still manages that perfect disappointed look. And why she was so weak as to let Klaus take her in for one vulnerable, drunken night when Matt changed tables to avoid her and Tyler did too and she was just so _alone_. Seriously.

_Shit_.

It's only dawn, but she feels like an eon has passed since she woke up in Klaus's cocoon-like arms (secret closet cuddler, and damn her for wanting to tease him about it _like a woman to her lover, which he can never be, so why does she burn when she touches him?_) and flipped out on herself.

Why is her entire life a guilt trip these days?

She sees Klaus at around noon that day, and he smiles at her a little softer than before, but she remembers the sensation of a stake embedded in her stomach and turns away with a shy glance at Tyler, who stands behind Klaus loyally. Tyler doesn't meet her gaze, and she stares at the floor instead while Stefan and Damon make arrangements with Klaus and Elena tries to control her own life (she fails, Caroline fails, everybody fails).

(She's used to having to stare at the floor.)

Thankfully, Klaus doesn't mention their little horizontal tango from the night before, and nobody scents him on her or vice versa. Thank God. (And thank those four showers she had this morning, those might have helped just the littlest tiniest bit.)

This promise was more to herself than anyone else, but that doesn't matter.

She can't even keep promises to _herself_.

What is so _wrong_ with her that she can't even do _that_?

* * *

A/N: Short and messy. But I had to, okay? It's a five-times fic and I just had to.


	5. this empty heart

A/N: Yeah, so. My angsty fifth-time out of five. Um. Definite Daroline. Steroline friendship. Stelena. Care, Elena, and Bon brOTP, if such a thing is possible. Um. That's about it. Also: major depression.

Disclaimer: Don't own Johnny Hates Jazz, and I don't own VD.

* * *

5.

_run away from this empty heart_

She promises Damon she'll be strong when she leaves.

Mystic Falls has not been her home for a long time—probably since she woke up in a hospital, breathless and with no need for air at all. So she decides to go. When's she last been welcome, anyway? That's her reasoning.

Elena and Bonnie team up to try to get her to stay, joining forces like every time before (just like every time, they leave Caroline out of it, though this time's it's because they're on opposing forces) and begging her to help them. Bonnie needs emotional support through her witchy stuff. Elena needs help deciding which boy to choose, needs her to stay and protect her and give her advice.

"Stefan and Damon aren't enough," she says. "And I don't know who I love more, who I should be with. I don't know anymore, Caroline, I never have, and I need your help. I need you to help me. Please."

"Who tackled Klaus that day, to protect you?" Caroline says.

"Stefan did."

"Who did you love first?"

"Well, Stefan."

"When you're in trouble, who do you call first? Who do you think of first?"

"Stefan and Da—"

"You said Stefan first," Caroline points out. She's trying to speed it up, because if she lets herself stay here any longer, she'll get emotional, or worse—give in to Elena and Bonnie's pleading. "There's your choice made for you right there. That's who you love the most. Break it to Damon gently, 'kay? Not getting the one that you want, that you love, that you _need _to some extent, can be pretty devastating. Trust me, I know. All right." She smoothes out her strapped dark blue dress and shoulders her matching midnight blue bag (it made her think of a certain pair of eyes when she bought it last week, but they weren't Klaus's so she took that as both a loss and a win). "Bon? Be strong. Remember who you are, what your Gram said, what she meant to you, what she taught you and what you've learned all on your own with nobody's help. You have the power of a thousand witches riding on you, depending on your guidance. But you've always been the best of us three at decisions—well, _good_ decisions, anyway. Your choices…I trust every single one of them, and you should too. You both are so good, so kind, so trusting. Sometimes that won't work out in your favor." She gives them a bittersweet smile—bitter because she is and sweet because they deserve it and because she can provide it for them, just one last time (might as well give them a happy last memory, because they'll probably be dead by the time she gets as unbroken as possible, so she'll smile and be head cheerleader and a liar and a pretender once more, for the very last time, just because she can). "Elena, you'll make a great vampire. Trust me. Bonnie, you're already a wonderful witch. You can protect each other. Don't forget your friendship, and don't forget me. All of you have to remember me. I'll see you girls around sometime. I love you both. Best friends _forever_ forever, right?"

She flashes them one last grin, hugs them with vamp speed before they can respond with a blink or a gasp or even a hint of their arms around her—_if they touch her she might give in and stay_—and she's gone.

Damon catches her outside the boardinghouse four hours later, still deciding whether she should knock or not. "You just gonna stand out there all day?" he calls from a second story bedroom window that's been opened (maybe it's his? She's never been in his room before—not that she _cares_, of course, oh please, don't be ridiculous now) and impatiently gestures for her to come inside.

She enters quietly and sits in the living room beside the fireplace. It's almost midnight now.

He joins her about thirty seconds or so later, just a few shy of how many she was willing to wait for him (she'd have gotten up and left in ten seconds—no, really, she would have), and sits next to her. She memorizes this; her last memory of him, she thinks.

He's wearing his black jeans, slung low on his hips and threatening indecent exposure, though it's nothing that she hasn't already seen before, though then her vision was unclear compared to how she is now, a vampire. The clarity would be so much better now. But she resists the thought of asking him to undo his jeans just a little bit—he gives her weird looks often enough these days, more than he did even when he hated everything and she was his little human toy that played stupid for him because he asked her with those mesmerizing dark midnight blue eyes that seduced her and hated her and made her feel just a little bit (a lot) like nothing (all her life she's wanted to be _something_).

("_You mark my words. Small town boy, small town life…it won't be enough for you._")

(Even Klaus thought she was gonna be _something_, but Damon never did, so maybe she relies on Damon more than she once thought, more than she will allow herself to admit even now.)

He's sporting that black button-up that he wears so often these days. As usual, a few buttons at the top are undone casually—accidentally-on-purpose, she likes to think (not that she thinks about him unbuttoning his shirt) and the collar is perfect. Everything is perfect about Damon Salvatore. Even his freaking black Armani shoes or whatever they are—can black shoes have that much shine, realistically? Like, seriously?—remain perfect, despite the fact he's probably had them stained with dirt or blood at least a million times by now. Does he have a carwash company clean them or something?

(Good God, she's reduced to the point that she analyzes Damon Salvatore's _shoes. Damon Salvatore's_ fucking goddamn _shoes_.)

And his eyes are that clear hard-but-passionate, mysterious-and-revealing-nothing midnight blue that they so often are, and his lips remind her of the way he used to kiss her hard, and his nose is straight and perfect in the way that not even an immortal's should be. And his hair is just a little bit longer than usual and it gives him that perfect-but-scruffy look that she's always secretly admired on him. He looks…perfect. (He makes her want to stay even more than Elena and Bonnie did, and that should probably frighten her but she brings that will of steel into the picture—the one that she's supposed to have but normally doesn't, because she's never been a very good vampire in that aspect, and apparently, according to the Salvatores, all vampires must be viciously and even sometimes stupidly stubborn and have sexy and steely eyes (wait, what?)—and tries not to be afraid of this man whose touch used to figuratively burn her alive.)

He speaks first. "So, I hear from Bonnie and Elena that you're leaving?"

She has to clear her throat first after she spends a couple of seconds analyzing his moving, pale lips again. "Um…yeah." (Wow. Eloquent as ever around him.)

"You didn't tell Stefan goodbye, you know."

"Yeah, I know," she says, shifting uncomfortably. "I figured he wouldn't want to hear it from me."

"Why?"

And the words are so very hard to say, but they also seem so true to her. "He's just always…" she shrugs. "…so disappointed in me."

He actually has to gall to fucking _laugh at her_. But he calms down when he sees her face, the look of confusion and maybe a bit of hurt. (Even now, he doesn't—can't—take her seriously, and maybe he senses that she thinks that.)

"He just wants you to be better than him," he finally says quietly, looking down at his bourbon tumbler stuck in-between his (too perfect, too toned, too fucking goddamn awesome because remember she's seen him _naked_ before) thighs. (His legs are freaking perfect, she swears to God.) And he sounds honest-to-God serious with her, for once. (Maybe it's the way she has to lean in to hear him properly, and the way that there is no smirk or sarcastic joke. He doesn't even call her Barbie. What the hell?)

"Better than him?" she scoffs. "Nobody's better than Stefan, remember? Except maybe Elena."

He smiles wordlessly, lips stretched grim and serious and maybe even a little bittersweet, and it disappears within a few seconds and she's left with his blank, could-mean-anything expression, which is the face she knows best on him. Then he clears his throat, and then he drinks his bourbon, and then he speaks again. "Yeah. But…Stefan, you know, his blood problem. He just, he doesn't want you to end up having that."

"When have I ever had a blood problem? Aside from my messy little carnival accident, I've been pretty damn controlled."

His eyes sparkle slightly. "Yeah. I remember. I mean, I know. It's just…Stefan is way too protective of those he cares about."

She thinks about that for a minute, and then shrugs. "Yeah, well. Stefan and I, we haven't been talking much lately anyway. I just left him a note. Told Elena to give it to him. Hopefully that will be enough. If not…" she shrugs helplessly. "Well, I don't know. We've been a strained friendship for a while. I guess it might be partially expected on his part, to just get a note instead of hugs and crying and all that sentimental emotional shit."

For a second, he just stares at her. "You're not the same girl that you used to be," he mutters out of the side of his mouth, hastily breaking eye contact with her and licking the bourbon off his lower lip. (She refuses the urge to shudder. She's not human anymore, Jesus. She…has…_control_, dammit.)

"What is that supposed to mean?" She isn't sure, but she thinks that she might be faintly offended when her brain starts working again.

"Well, to be frank" —and when is Damon ever not frank, except when he's being coy on purpose to annoy the absolute _shit_ out of people— "the human girl that I knew called Caroline Forbes would have never broken off a friendship. Ever. Or broken up with Tyler if she loved him, or left a note for the guy that used to be her best friend even if they weren't anymore."

"Yeah, well—"

"Not finished." He gives her an irritated look as he takes a gulp of bourbon, taking the burning drink down with a tightening around his closed eyes (she can see the lines forming) and a quick swallow, and she realizes she's never seen him wince from anything before now. It's kind of refreshing, actually. "The girl I knew would have done anything whatsoever to keep that friendship alive. She would have tried to stay with Tyler, for the sake of love because she believed in shit like that and I don't know if you do anymore or not. She would have told her ex-bestie a personal goodbye—or better yet, they would have still been besties. And," and here he snorts derisively, disdainfully shooting a glance of pure sheer disbelief at her, "she most _definitely_ would _not_ have slept with fucking _Klaus_."

(Okay, so maybe they _did_ notice the smell of her on him that day.)

She ignores that little jab. "Yeah, well, you didn't know that girl very long, or very well for that matter, either, it seems," she snaps. "I tossed away friends like gum wrappers, as a human. I may have had a hopeless crush on Matt and then Stefan and then you, but I dumped boys back then like they were made solely for that purpose. I may have kept Bonnie and Elena, so you're right about the friendship thing, but I used to gossip about my other friends and stab them in the back—the ones that weren't my best friends." Her voice is harsh, her tone reflecting her self-hatred, and she continues on after a few seconds. "And I probably _would_ have slept with Klaus, if he called himself cocky and smiled at me in the Grille like you did."

After a few moments, he speaks, eyes focused clearly on the fireplace. She can see the flames reflecting in his clear icy blue eyes, and it looks rather paradox-like.

"God, you really only see the bad parts about yourself, don't you?"

"Doesn't everybody?" she snorts. "Besides, those are facts, not just 'bad parts,'" she adds, stating it like a fact (and to her, it is). "I was a bitch, and a bit of a slut. And I guess I haven't changed much."

He just looks at her. "You weren't and you aren't either of those things. Don't you _get_ it?" he says, and he almost sounds angry because she doesn't see in herself what he obviously thinks he sees.

And she has this strange desire to kiss him or something, but she doesn't because this is not something that they do. They don't have meaningful soul-searching conversations (what the hell is this then?), they don't look deeply into each other's eyes (except he's staring at her baby blues like he's trying to win a contest), and they don't act like normal people that can have a one-night stand because they _aren't_ so they can't. So they won't.

"I guess I don't," she says, so softly that he can barely hear it.

(_Good_, she thinks, because she doesn't like it when people hear her being unsure of herself.)

He sighs, maybe struggling with something inside himself. Possibly. "Look, just—just promise me that you'll stay strong, okay?" he asks her. "While you're gone. That you'll be strong, and you won't change too much. All right?"

She doesn't much like this promise, but Damon's never asked her for anything before. Not like this. He told her to give him blood and sex as a human, and he told her to stay away from her father after he tortured her, and he told her to help him and Stefan protect Elena (while Stefan made her promise, and what a debacle _that's_ been), and he told her to try her best to keep her promise to Bonnie.

But he's never _asked_ her anything before—and most definitely not like this, so openly and vulnerably. She's so able to refuse him right now, and he's letting her have that right to hurt him.

(But he's been hurt enough, can't you tell, and she doesn't have the heart to refuse him right now.)

Let her make another promise, one that she'll break.

"Okay, I promise," she says, and she doesn't let their blue eyes connect, and he doesn't make her. They sit side by side, hoping the other is too blind to see each other's feelings (she's hiding pain and lust, and he, if you asked him, isn't hiding _anything_) and letting the moment sink into silence.

Without a word, she stands up at vampire speed, kisses his throat at that spot that used to make him moan when she was his human lover/Happy Meal, whispers _goodbye_, and slips out of the house.

She's at the train station before she stops running, and that's only because there's people around and eventually someone will notice the flash of blond hair and leather jacket and miniskirt and heels. (Damn her for her clichés, she thinks.)

After buying a ticket and finding an empty seat in the back, she spends the next couple of days on different but identical trains (huh, kinda like Elena and Katherine) watching the scenery slip by her, all greens (like Stefan's eyes) and blues (like Damon's) and browns (like Klaus's or Elena's or Bonnie's or Jeremy's or Tyler's and _damn_) and other colors that she's too hazy to name.

The days pass in a dreamlike state, and it's only on the third day, when she finds herself in Chicago, that she remembers that she hasn't packed anything.

Screw it. Damon gave her a credit card for her last birthday—though the cash amount is limited, because apparently he's "learned his lesson" when letting girls shop with his money, or so he said when he gave it to her—and she knows how to smile pretty and let men buy things for her. She can get clothes and food.

And she sort of maybe kind of has a place in mind to live in.

She finds herself in Stefan's apartment, as planned.

It's kind of funny, actually. She really thought she'd keep this promise. But two weeks into it, she finds herself gorging on the blood of pretty male models (they go into work the next day all pale and dizzy and decidedly less pretty, but who cares) with dark hair and unreadable eyes (does the color really matter these days?) and she's lost herself.

She wasn't strong, isn't strong, will _never_ be strong. (It's just a fact of life.)

(Goddamn Damon Salvatore's always denying the facts, always making her want to rebel against them too, but she's just not strong enough this time. She never will be.)

(Goddamn her too, for _wanting_ to rebel when she knew from the beginning that she couldn't.)

She pens another name on the wall of Stefan's alcohol-stash room—the name of another victim. Another model steps up, all big flashy smiles and mysterious eyes, and she feels her face tense as the veins rise up and the blood rushes to her eyes as they become bloodshot. Her fangs emerge.

(She wants to think she's getting better, because she compels them to enjoy it now, but that's just another lie.)

* * *

A/N: I totally went overboard on the angst thing, but I'm so tired right now that I can't even care. So. I love you all. Review? The epilogue will be posted soon!


	6. epilogue

A/N: The epilogue to my five-times prompt! Yay! I originally wrote this after I wrote part one...and had to tie in everything else to fit in with this as best I could. It's badly written, in my opinion, and messy, but if you people are masochists you can read it. (If you're that masochistic you can also review! *happy face*)

Disclaimer: If I owned VD, I would not be posting a five-times story for an old friend on a _fan fiction_ website.

* * *

_epilogue_

She returns to Mystic Falls a year and a half later, struggling with a blood problem. But she's got enough of a handle on it that she can behave normally around regular good old human people. It's only when she's alone with the blood that she goes a bit…well, animal-like.

She _has_ changed. Broken her promise to Damon, and to everybody else.

Stefan finds her first, drinking her fifth bourbon of the night (what can she say, Damon influences _everybody's _drinking habits, and nearly two years in Chicago just don't change that) in the Grille, and he has a couple of harsh words for her—mostly for leaving him with just a note.

"I thought we were best friends, Caroline."

She chokes slightly on her sip of alcohol, but doesn't let it show as she swallows the burning sensation down with the pleasant buzz. "I did, too." She sighs, and the alcohol's got enough of a grip on her that she'll tell him the truth about her feelings. "I'm sorry. I just—I didn't want you to be disappointed in me anymore."

Biting back a bittersweet smile, he looks down at her, sitting on her barstool, and says, "I'm sorry too. For letting you think that I ever was."

Maybe she's drunk and imagining this whole thing.

But they hug and it sure _feels_ real enough and he sends her to the boardinghouse to talk to Damon because he has date night with Elena in twenty minutes and he doesn't want a "mushy girly reunion" taking up all his romance time. (Perhaps he's been spending too much time with Damon? He's certainly picked up on the moody-bastard vocabulary.)

She obediently finds herself at the boardinghouse, but this time she doesn't wait for an invitation. She just walks right in, and almost immediately finds him in the living room where she last left him (like time stopped, like things never changed, like she doesn't want that blood bag in his hand more than ever), refilling his bourbon while also swallowing down a pint of AB positive.

"Want some blood-and-bourbon ice cream?" he asks her, his back still turned to her (he shouldn't even know she's _there_, dammit, but it's Damon so of course he knows), blasé and acting unfazed. (He obviously is by her presence, but she doesn't deny him the nonchalance he so desperately needs to pretend to have.)

"What?" she says, mostly shocked. (And somehow not, because, _hello_, it's _Damon_. The man who never lets himself feel if he can help it.)

"I've found it helps with the cravings," he says. "And you sure seem to be having a lot of them. I checked up on you in Chicago every so often, you know." He still hasn't faced her yet, as he takes a drink of his newly-refilled bourbon glass. "Damn. You sure didn't keep your promise, Barbie."

"Yeah," she finds herself saying, and it's like an out-of-body experience. She didn't know that seeing him again would be this…_strange_. There's really no word for it. Like she'd disconnected from her mind and body and vocal cords. And she can't say anything articulate to save her own skin.

Finally, he turns to her, and the next thing she knows, they're eye-to-eye, close enough to kiss if she just barely leaned forward a couple of inches. Damn vampire speed.

"You know, you and I both have a pretty bad track record with promises," he says, looking into her eyes. Not soulfully, not deeply, not sadly or madly or evilly or even hard and angrily. Just passionately. They're both two very passionate people, whether it's in love or hate or even self-hatred. They have a large supply of all three inside of them, and the stock never runs empty no matter what. Except maybe for the third one when they're around each other, when things dissipate and melt and become less important and they forget their reasons to hate themselves. (They have a way of making each other feel better that neither of them understands.)

"Yeah. So?" She tries not to sound like she's holding her breath, like she can't even dare to show her true self to him for fear of rejection or maybe just repeating her mistakes. Letting him use her and abuse her and leave her and maybe even kill her this time after all where he failed the first (and second, and third) times.

(But she's a vampire and she can take care of herself now. So she tells the scared little human who shares the memories inside of her to stop being so frightened. She'll handle this.)

"So let's not make any promises," he says. "Let's…let's make a vow."

"Same thing," she rolls her eyes, and just like that, her nonstop cravings are just…gone.

(Maybe she was just…replacing Damon with blood or something? No, no, even her subconscious couldn't be _that_ cheesy, not to mention stupid.)

"No," he replies, thinking it out loud. "A promise…a promise is easily broken. It isn't meant to be, but it is. People make promises all the time. They promise to make breakfast or show up to a wedding, but it easily gets pushed away and replaced by something else, something we see as more important at the time. New promises replace the old ones so fast that it's like they were never there. A vow is sacred—it's everlasting. Vows don't end, they never just _stop_. You break a vow and you violate trust. You break a promise and you're the average person.

"So let's make a vow."

"Let's," she agrees, maybe because she's half-drunk and she misses this easiness between her and people in general. (Not that Damon should ever be involved with the words "in general" in the same sentence, ever again.)

He pauses, takes a deep breath. Looks a little scared, which she's never seen on his face before. It's a new look, and it's almost nice to know that there are parts of him that he'll show to her that other people have never seen, and will never see, either.

"I vow to not let you break quite so many promises in exchange that you make me do the same. I vow to take you shopping once a month until you kill my wallet, and once a year until you drop. I vow to let you listen to stupid bands on the radio and only hiss if they _really suck_, if you vow to let me listen on weekends to my music. I vow to write you songs on important dates, depending on what we _both _view as important dates, as long as you don't tell anybody else, _ever_, and be_lieve_ me, I will know if you do tell. I vow not to let Elena or anyone else's opinion get to me, concerning you. And I vow to maybe _one day_ go to the next level."

His voice is soft and quiet and unlike anything she's ever expected from him. He's never been quite so gentle and raw with her—even when she was human and he must have thought he could just compel those moments of softness away, he didn't show her this vulnerability—and she likes this about him. So she decides to go while it's her turn, before he stops it and pretends it was just some drunken rant (and not really defenseless exposure) and makes her swear to forget about all of this. (Another promise she'd have to break, because it's nearly impossible to forget Damon Salvatore unless you're human and stupid, especially when he's being all adorably vulnerable like this—and when she did start calling Damon _adorable_ and fucking shit like that?)

"I vow to keep you from breaking the really important promises if you'll do the same for me," she flashes a grin at him. "I vow to not steal your bourbon anymore, unless you let me with your permission." He raises an eyebrow at this, slightly disturbed by the _anymore_, but says nothing. "I vow to let you listen to your super depressing music on the weekends if you'll read _Gone with the Wind _to me during it. Maybe a chapter a night or something, I don't know. Anyway. I vow to make you breakfast on important dates, depending on what we _both _view as important dates. I vow to not get jealous when some hot woman drapes herself all over you, unless you start responding and I, like, _totally_ have the right. And I vow to maybe one day go to the next level with you, too."

(God, she sounds like she's seventeen again, and maybe he likes that, because she can see that he's fighting that irresistible half-smile that all of her crushes have always seemed to have—and him most especially. And damn if that doesn't make her melt a little bit inside.)

"We need a witness," he says, and she could swear that his eyes have gone impossibly soft with every word that she's said. Oh my God. It almost looks like he's showing his feelings. Oh, sweet Jesus, this may be a smaller sign of the upcoming apocalypse. He takes a sip of his bourbon, his eyes never leaving hers.

She presses herself up against him and tastes the bourbon on his lips. Then she licks the spot above his upper lip, catching the last remaining sensation of the feeling of cold ice and the rim of a glass. "Let's be each other's witnesses, okay? I don't have the energy to find someone, bring them here, repeat everything, and then kick them out so that we can have mad wild animal sex."

"Mad wild _vampire_ sex," he corrects. "It's ten times as fun, and fifty times as satisfying. And you were great when you were human, I can't even think about now…" His eyes go down her body, her waist, her legs, and then they come back up, unbearably and wonderfully _slowly_, checking her out like it's the first time all over again. It's been the longest time since someone's looked at her like that—someone that she really trusts, anyway, that wasn't compelled. (And oh God, she _trusts _Damon now? When did that come about?) "Oh, how I joyfully anticipate." He grins. "You're right, let's not wait. I _can't_. I am a willing witness."

"Me, too," she breathes.

And he crushes his lips to hers, lifts her up until she wraps her legs around his waist, and he wanders over to the couch until they both collapse onto it. Every bit of it she tries to memorize.

She's not going to break this vow.

* * *

A/N: So, I ended it all sappy. Didn't mean to. Certainly wanted to, but I didn't mean to. Mostly because my friend likes angsty fics. Oh well. Anyway, you guys got 11,000 words out of this, total, so at least _someone_ may have sort of profited (my sleeping habits did not).

Um. So, I have like fifteen projects (some fic-wise and some not) that are all completely unrelated to this and _why_ do I keep starting these new things?

Oh, well, at least this one's just a one-shot. An incredibly seriously long one-shot. Seriously. What is wrong with me?

Like I said, this was a pretty terrible one, but I'd love to hear your constructive criticism and, dare I hope for it, the things you actually _liked_ about it.

BTW, I'm tentatively...extremely hesitant here, I'm telling you...thinking about venturing into the realm of the Avengers. Mostly because I love Ironman and Captain America. And pretty much every single character. As usual, it would prob be a romance - because let's face it, Maria Hill and the Cap had some serious eye sex going on in the last movie. Let's all just admit it. Feedback? Encouragement, a resounding no, what?

OH. OH YES. I ALMOST FORGOT. I am writing a steamy White Collar fic right now. I'm not really sure if I dare to post it on here or not when (if?) I'm finished with it. (I don't know if I can finish anything anymore, which deeply scares me.) It's, um, pretty much the M-_est_ thing I've ever even considered writing. Honestly. I'm ashamed. I'm blushing here at some of the things I'm thinking about. I'll probably cut out half of it and end up just posting the T parts, if I can help it. Anyway. Thoughts on this?

Review? Criticize, comment, question, advise, tell me your favorite parts, anything! I love you all!


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